"Leaving New York City yesterday bound for California on one of the last flights out of JFK before the airport closed, a flight attendant told me I was lucky to already have my ticket because the airlines had just jacked up ticket prices to $4,000 in light of the impending storm.
As a result, the flight I was on was oversold by 47 extra passengers. So the flight attendants offered money to passengers who volunteered to switch their tickets to the next flight out of NYC, whenever that might be. The first offer of $200 wasn't enough to get 47 volunteers; only a bid of $400 did the trick.
If the 47 extra passengers had each paid $4,000 to get onto the plane at the last minute, and the 47 who gave up their seats for them received only $400 in return the trade would have been "rational" in narrow market terms. The seats were "worth" $4,000 to those who bought them, and receiving $400 was "worth" it to those who gave them up.
But the transaction was also deeply exploitative. The airline netted a huge profit because of the impending storm.
I couldn't help think this was a miniature version of the America we'll have if Mitt Romney is elected president."
I'm curious as to the supposed rationale for the sudden price hike (or exploitative price gauging?). I wonder if there is one, other than that there are now people prepared to pay that much?
Is it right to charge someone dying of thirst all their worldly goods for a glass of water? (Of course, that's what we do in for-profit health care). But right and wrong have no place in a shareholder value-based model.
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